A mighty thump, followed by the sound of scattering debris. Zaki knew straight away that another mortar had slammed into the nearby bear’s enclosure, the fifth late afternoon intrusion in less than two weeks. He held his breath, but nothing happened. No bursting in anger? A dud like the others? Thank goodness for the incompetence of those young fools!

The only warning in Kabul’s autumn sky had been a whistling sound, almost tuneful, which in happier times would’ve easily been mistaken for a zoo keeper in a pleasant mood, perhaps someone remembering an old love song. What would it take to bring back those glorious days, when families could walk freely through the grounds?

Zaki crawled out of his hiding place. He moved slowly, careful not to go too far out into the open, but enough to be able to get a clear view and assess the danger. He’d been in the middle of his prayers when the mortar fell and he wondered if that’s what had saved them. Then he remembered that at the moment of impact he’d actually been momentarily distracted from his prayers, wondering if anyone else in the world had ever been forced to live in a hole in the ground.

The mortar was grey and shiny like a large beetle. It had smashed a piece off the top of the enclosure’s back wall and then rolled in behind a log. What Zaki found amazing was that the racket hadn’t roused the bear from her slumber. ‘It’s going to be fine,’ he whispered to his friend, trying not to stretch up too high in case someone spotted him. He knew the words were more for himself. ‘I’ll come over in the safety of the night, when the gates are closed and no one can see me. Stay asleep and keep dreaming of our better days.’ He held out his cold, blistered hand and blew his friend a kiss.

Zaki’s hiding place was a simple underground chamber at the end of a narrow dirt tunnel, just below a fence that surrounded part of the enclosure. Wooden bins, which once overflowed with grain and slops for the animals, partly covered a small grill that opened above his head. The base of a large mulberry tree also provided extra protection, keeping the confines of the tunnel in constant darkness. He called it his “royal palace”.

He settled back down on his sheepskin rug, still damp from a downpour the week before, and closed his eyes. ‘Don’t go sniffing, my dear friend. Please don’t go sniffing. The beetle may look interesting, but it’s actually very nasty.’ He could only hope that the bear’s injured nose would stop her from exploring too far.

As he waited for Kabul’s orange moon to make an appearance, he prepared the long, brittle twigs he would need to remove the danger. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get any sleep, despite a tiredness that was trying to choke him to death. Stray dogs also continued to yelp, and the gunpowder on the wind was starting to sting his nostrils with increasing ferocity.

He finished his prayers and then ate a piece of the stale bread he’d earlier managed to salvage from outside one of the keepers’ huts. Crumbs got lost in his knotted beard of grey and brown, but he made no attempt to retrieve them. There was no one to be tidy for now. Just the animals.

He was also pleased to discover that a decent amount of water had dripped into his rusty mug, having followed the clever river beds he’d cut into the mulberry tree with his pocket knife. He lay back and dreamed he was sucking the soft flesh from the inside of a mango. He left it sitting on his tongue. The sensation of a real, fresh mouthful.

It wasn’t long before he wondered whether he’d made the right decision to wait for nightfall. What if his friend woke up and really did go prying behind the log? Would it not be better to take a risk now, despite the daylight? He sat on his hands and prayed for an answer. Nothing came, though. He remained where he was, the whole time urging the sun to fall faster from the sky.

The temptation of pilaf then drifted in from the run-down homes nearby, a dish that 20 neighbours had probably chipped in to make. Divine smells for impoverished noses. Zaki could make out chicken, yoghurt and raisins, which reminded him of the three years he spent as the chef in a warlord’s residence. Perhaps someone had a bottle of something strong as well, something the soldiers hadn’t been able to seek out.

He thought back to the days before the troubles: before the Russians, before the Taliban, before ‘America’s worst nightmare’, as he’d heard someone describe it on the radio. Would he ever again enjoy a pilaf picnic under the lush mulberry groves outside of Kabul? Would the roads ever be lined again with handsome, leafy trees? Would the children ever be truly free to sing and skylark like they used to?

Someone said the Americans were close to the capital and it might only be a matter of days before they conquered the entire country. What would that mean? Did Americans treasure animals, or was it true what they said on the radio? Just in front of the enclosure the day before, he’d overheard a couple of Taliban soldiers talking about their ‘losing battle’. They’d leaned against the bins and rubbed their feet with some of the balms they’d ransacked from the animal clinic. They hadn’t thought to look for Zaki there beneath the mulberry tree. They’d been searching everywhere, hauling in the keepers to help, knowing it hadn’t been a clever monkey throwing rocks at their comrades the week before. Zaki smiled when he thought about how he’d managed to hit a fat soldier on the head from a great distance, making him dance around madly with his hands on his head.

The bear shifted in her shelter, making groaning sounds, most likely caused by hunger. No sound was more agonising to listen to. He put his head up against the grill and whispered, straining his eyes to see if he could make out her worn black coat. ‘Just don’t go near the log, you crazy big lump. It’s not long to wait now.’

Vehicles could still be heard on the other side of the zoo and he knew he couldn’t risk going out into the open, not until he was certain the front gates were closed. Too many battle-weary Taliban, some as young as 16, had been regularly coming into the grounds to use the water fountains and shower in the old elephant house. Why couldn’t they just wash and leave? Why did they have to hassle the remaining animals, already malnourished and miserable?

What kind of man would bait a gorgeous, innocent bear by getting up dangerously close - an act of bravado in front of his friends - and then cut off a slice of the animal’s nose in revenge for the inevitable scratches? With people like that about, Zaki knew he had to wait for total darkness before venturing out of his hole.

In a letter to his mother, Zaki said throwing rocks at the Taliban soldiers and the guards of warlords was the very least he could do to protest against the terrible things he'd witnessed. As well as being angry about the bear’s nose, he was bitter about the injuries inflicted on Marjan, the greatest lion in the world, who’d lost an eye and part of his mouth when he tossed around something he probably took to be a toy or piece of strange food. The object turned out to be another nasty beetle, a grenade, this one more than willing to express the anger of the sender. The attack had been another act of revenge, carried out by the brother of a man mauled to death after foolishly climbing into Marjan’s enclosure.

Zaki, a grown man of 50 winters, described in his letter how he’d wept when he helped the keepers and a couple of other visitors rush Marjan over to the zoo’s deprived medical clinic. Everything possible was done to try to help, but nothing had been able to fix the damage. As well as losing an eye and his hearing, Marjan lost the teeth he needed for chewing. Someone had to help, and that’s when Zaki decided to secretly dedicate his days to the animals' well-being.

‘Our country’s curse of conflict’, he told his mother, ‘has not even spared these fine creatures who know nothing of the grievances. I have decided to live among them, as their guardian angel. I prefer their company to that of people.’

Two of the zoo’s most popular animals had been injured for the first time in years of conflict. Zaki hadn’t wept like that when news came through that some of his old school friends had been killed in military action. This new grief was over something far more profound: the future of his entire people, his entire culture.

He wondered whether his letter and the terrible story it contained ever got through to his mother, who’d been forced to go and live with her sister in the city of Ghazni. He’d placed his trust in a young Pakistani woodman who often took the trade route from Kabul to Kandahar. That had been weeks before, though, and he had no way of knowing if the letter had actually been delivered.

* * *

Zaki woke to the sound of scraping. He was surprised to learn that he’d actually managed to fall asleep, but then saw that he’d accidentally rolled over and snapped the long twigs he’d put aside. He retied his headscarf and pulled his coat tightly around his thin frame. Had his friend discovered the grey menace? Was she nudging it, and wondering why it wasn’t reacting?

He crawled out of the tunnel and hurried along to the enclosure on his hands and knees, the whole time checking the dusty paths nearby, just in case he’d missed the sound of soldiers.

‘Zaki?’

The voice came from behind. He dared not look around. The moon, now rising, seemed to be shining down just on him, as bright as the spotlight in the local square.

‘Zaki, you old camel! Don’t panic. It’s just me.’

‘You!’ He jumped up and hugged the Pakistani woodman, who seemed much lankier than he remembered. ‘I thought you were a soldier.’

The woodman grinned and handed over a parcel. ‘The dried fruit and canned fish you asked for, as well as a small amount of tobacco.’

‘You scared me.’

‘But I also have some bad news.’ The woodman turned his head away.

‘Bad news? What could possibly get any worse?’

‘Your mother.’

Zaki closed his eyes. ‘Did she not get my letter?’

‘No, I have it here.’

‘But she is in Ghazni?’

‘They said they waited for days but she never arrived.’

Zaki sat down heavily on the dust, his legs folding up as though he were beginning a traditional dance. He put his head right down, almost onto his stomach.

Neither man spoke. One seated, the other standing up. Silence. The moon bright. The wind starting to stir the dust on the paths.

After a while Zaki lifted his head and said, ‘A mortar may explode. In there with our friend. I have to protect her. I can’t lose her too.’

They both found some new twigs and then worked for an hour in silence, slowly coaxing the stubborn beetle out of a groove in the frozen soil. They prayed as they manoeuvred, hoping that the device’s inner workings had somehow been damaged and made useless. Zaki felt as if his breathing were as shallow as that of a toad-headed lizard and he may actually faint from the lack of oxygen. Concentration. Deep concentration. Both men sweated profusely, despite the cold. They kept their eyes on the beetle, willing it with all of their force to stay asleep.

The woodman asked, ‘Is this American, or from the Taliban?’

‘The Americans aren’t upon us yet, so it must be from our poor soldiers, mere babies, still practising how it’s done, still working out the distances, how to target them.’

‘They choose the zoo for target practice?’

Zaki frowned. ‘I like to think it’s not deliberate, but one has to wonder.’

Just as the bear began to groan again, perhaps threatening to start crawling in search of food, they gently rolled the beetle out of the enclosure and onto the dirt. ‘If it wanted to explode it would’ve done so by now,’ said Zaki.

They were still there. In one piece. They said quick prayers and beamed at each other. They walked in wide circles, breathing deeply, furiously rubbing their hands together to try to warm them up. Zaki attached a long piece of twine around the tail of the beetle. Then, after measuring out what he thought to be a reasonably safe distance, he dragged it delicately towards his hidden collection of unexploded and exploded munitions. He had about a dozen mortars and grenades, plus the spent shells from smaller arms. He’d moved them all into a shallow hole and covered them over with sticks and leaves.

‘It’s what I’ve collected over the months,’ he said. ‘Strays that’ve come in here, that I’ve found out in the streets, as well as what I’ve confiscated from those who shouldn’t have that kind of power in their hands.’

‘You’re going to blow yourself up.’ The woodman laughed up into the sky. ‘They could explode at any minute.’

‘Better to kill me than the animals.’

‘What’s so special about them?’

Zaki groaned as he put more leaves over his munitions dump. ‘What’s so special about us that they should die instead?’

‘You crazy old camel.’ The woodman settled down on a tree stump.

‘They represent the spirit of this country,’ said Zaki. ‘They live, we all live. Now, stop making so much noise and help me collect some meat for Marjan and the others.’

‘Don’t the keepers feed them?’

‘They do their best but they’re no longer paid. They can hardly feed themselves.’

The woodman retied his headscarf, using one end of it to wipe away the sweat on his neck. He grinned, flashing three tiny teeth. ‘Where’s your stash of meat then? Who has anything spare these days?’

‘There are people who still have too much. There always is, even in times of conflict. They don’t even know it’s missing.’

The two men crept along in the shadows to the zoo’s perimeter and then effortlessly scaled one of the stone walls, climbing up the long, flowing branches of a willow tree. They made their way to a nearby butcher’s shop, where sacks of meat were always left in an unlocked shed, ready for delivery to those who could still afford it.

‘I did look for her,’ said the woodman, ‘as much as I could. I asked around about her. I tried to follow up any leads.’

‘Thank you. I appreciate that.’

‘You know, she may’ve ...’

Zaki stopped and took hold of the woodman’s hand. ‘We need to be quiet now. The people around here are very alert to strange sounds in the night.’

Zaki emerged from the shed with two large packets of meat and handed one of them to the woodman. Half way back to the zoo, he said, ‘These smelt the worst. It’s probably a tough old goat that no one wanted and now it’s not fresh enough to sell.’

He explained to the woodman how he had to use his pocket knife to cut the meat up into very small pieces for Marjan, to make it easier for him to eat.

Then, just as they approached the section of the wall they needed to climb back over, the light from a torch further down the road sought them out, with the sound of somebody running towards them. ‘Stay there! Kneel down on the ground!’

Zaki and the woodman fell to their knees, pushing the packages of meat behind their backs. A young Taliban soldier, who appeared to be alone, shone the torch in their eyes and kicked the packets to the ground. A rifle hung from his shoulder.

‘We are just returning to the zoo,’ said Zaki, fixing his eyes on the dirt in front of him. ‘It’s meat for the animals. We’re keepers at the zoo. We have no other business in the street.’

‘Why have you not taken up arms, to fight off the Americans?’ asked the soldier. ‘What could be more important than that?’

Zaki looked up into the light, disturbed by the small gasps of fear coming from the woodman. ‘The animals need to stay strong so our children can enjoy them again, when the zoo reopens in all its former glory. Do you not pray for such a day?’

The soldier spat some chewing tobacco onto the ground. ‘You’re a liar! There are no animals left in the zoo.’

‘There are not many,’ said Zaki, ‘but I swear there are still a few. Marjan the lion is still alive. The bear. Some wolves. A few others.’

‘Marjan? He’s still alive? After that attack?’

‘He was badly injured but he is still with us.’

The soldier’s face relaxed and he almost smiled. ‘I remember visiting Marjan when I was a boy. I thought he’d been killed.’

‘He is very much alive,’ said Zaki, discreetly taking the woodman’s hand to stop him from crying.

The soldier inspected the packages, but moved back quickly because of the foul smell. ‘You ought to find some fresher food for someone as great as Marjan.’ He switched off the torch and left, leaving the two men on their knees, hugging each other in shock.

The fear stayed with them, deep in their gut, until they later came face to face with Marjan. They sat and watched the animal’s forlorn face begin to sparkle with the promise of a midnight feast.

* * *

The Americans seemed to think that any number of creatures could be living in Zaki’s long beard and so they made obvious efforts to avoid close contact. ‘We need you to come with us,’ said one of the soldiers, not seeming to care that Zaki didn’t understand English. They took him by the arm, but he noticed their touch was a lot more delicate than usual.

They led him from his cell, down the long, familiar corridors, towards the captain he despised, the one who wouldn’t believe him, who continued to insist that he must be an enemy, a fighter, a hurter of people. A beating this time? Zaki prepared himself for more ridiculous questions, hours of misunderstanding, with mediocre translators who didn’t seem to be getting his story across to the Americans.

He’d told the same story to a different translator just a few days before, an elderly woman who’d presented herself as the wife of a university professor from Jalalabad. He’d repeated, for what seemed to be the 100th time, that he’d lived in the zoo in a secret tunnel for months, acting as the animals’ protector and feeder, collecting meat for them during the night. He totally denied the charges being alleged. He’d looked up at the woman as she repeated his words in English, praying that she would get them right and he could be released. The woman’s pale, round face and long lashes reminded him of his dear mother.

Zaki had repeated his story about Marjan, the bear, the tunnel, his simple existence under the light of the moon, his relief that the animals hadn’t been harmed when the American, British and Northern Alliance soldiers arrived. He’d explained how he had no choice but to stay on in his hiding place because he wanted to be sure the animals would continue to be looked after. He’d also been too afraid to learn the fate of his mother.

It had all seemed to be just wasted words, however. The captain kept saying that Zaki had failed to properly explain his 'nice little bomb factory', or why he’d been found hiding from them, or why he hadn’t surrendered the moment Kabul fell. The captain kept insisting that Zaki must have been a senior member of the Taliban. It seemed he would stay in his cell until he confessed. No confession, no freedom.

Now, though, things seemed to be different. Zaki stood once again in front of the captain, with the same elderly woman translator seated across the room. He saw that a pot of mint tea had been prepared. The captain came around from behind his desk and actually offered him a cup, seeming to smile. Zaki cautiously sipped. Something was up.

The captain spoke and then turned to the translator.

‘He says we have some good news,’ she said.

The captain put his arm around Zaki’s shoulder and continued talking.

‘Some witnesses have corroborated your story. They have come forward to attest to your innocence.’ The translator grinned excitedly.

Zaki was worried that she’d got the words wrong again. He looked back at the captain, but he only nodded.

‘You are free to go home,’ said the translator, tears building up in her eyes.

Zaki trembled as he quietly asked, ‘But who came forward, after all this time?’

The captain offered Zaki a chair. He explained through the translator that the zoo's fragile lion had died, just weeks after being visited by veterinary experts from the West.

Zaki stared straight ahead. He couldn't blink.

The keepers and officials who’d gathered for Marjan’s memorial service had got to hear about the arrest within the zoo's grounds. When the military showed them Zaki's photo, they recognised him as someone who’d been there to help on the day the lion had been injured. Then, during further investigation, other pieces of favourable evidence emerged.

‘Who killed him? Who killed our great Marjan, our last hope?’ Zaki slipped out of his chair, wheezing and curling into himself.

The captain’s words took a while to be translated, with the elderly woman sobbing and trying to comfort Zaki at the same time. ‘It was old age. No one killed him. He wasn’t in the best of shape with his old injuries ... but he’d already reached a very fine age.’

Zaki stopped crying as the words began to make more sense. Old age? Not by a nasty beetle? Not by an evil man? He closed his eyes and tried to think more clearly about what he’d heard. The departure he and Marjan had prayed for. He pictured the lion closing his eyes and taking his last breath serenely, extinguished by nothing more than old age.

Zaki held onto the woman’s arm and put his head against her thigh. ‘And the bear. What’s happened to my beautiful friend?’

The captain said he knew for a fact that she was fine and had been given the name Donatella. She’d begun treatment for the injuries to her nose and the prognosis was excellent. The captain repeated the phrases three times. He even put a hand on Zaki’s shoulder and gently squeezed.

It took Zaki a good 20 minutes before he could stand. He thanked the woman translator for her 'beautiful choice of words' and shook the captain’s hand. He also quietly said a prayer for Marjan, acknowledging his help in winning his release. He turned to the captain before leaving his office and said, ‘Dying of old age is something we should all be able to look forward to.’ He smiled and bowed.

Outside the army compound, the air seemed to have a fresher scent to it. He spent a few minutes watching a group of children laugh and chase one another, and then he wondered which direction he should take. He thought about the hole in the ground, but figured that would’ve already been filled in.

He couldn’t get the image of Marjan out of his head. He also pictured Donatella, lying back and resting, comforted by medication. Just as he decided to shuffle off down a track to his left, realising it didn’t really matter which direction he chose, he looked up and spotted a tall solitary figure by an old cart. He struggled to make out the face.

More than ten years
in the job and I’d never called in sick. Not once. But last
week I did. It felt utterly exhilarating to lie like that,
knowing that I wasn’t sick in the slightest. Well, I’m sick of
lots of things, but nothing they would happily give me a
day off for. Terrific is what I wanted Judy to shout out. I
wanted her to jump slightly, guffaw and clap at the same time,
like she used to do when something really tickled her. But
no, she just shuffled on down the hallway and turned off all the
lights that I now forget to extinguish on purpose. At least
she didn’t slap me, which has become something of a
regular occurrence. I think she has come to realise that I
would never slap her back.

I actually didn’t tell her what I was
planning, but I thought she might guess
in the end. Strangely, I even wondered if she might offer
to accompany me down the coast, and not give me excuses
about migraines, or television shows she couldn’t miss, or
how she had to take some important call from her family. I’d
left the clipping from the paper on the table with a circle
around the name: Doctor P.B. Waverly. I thought she might remember
the stories she used to love to listen to.

I bought flowers to take with me, but a lot
of good that was. I saw later in
the death notice that some miserable person had
requested that no flowers be offered. A donation to a charity? But it’s
him I wanted to honour, to buy something nice for, to have
something colourful and sweet-smelling to place on his
coffin. Posting off a cheque to some charity was just simply not the
same.

I remembered enthralling Judy with my
tales of mowing the lawns for Waverly,
when I was not even 15, with nowhere near enough muscle on my
arms to push a machine that looked more like a steamroller.
He refused to discuss a price when I first knocked on his door
and enquired about a job. He said he would pay from one
weekend to the next, whatever I thought to be the fair price for a
particular day’s work, implying that some days I would
slacken off and others I would be keen and sprightly. Sometimes
I asked for five quid, when the grass was low; other days,
when it seemed like a jungle, I boldly asked for 10, way above
what the other lads in the neighbourhood were getting. But he
always paid, never questioning my price. Once I pushed him
up to 20 quid when the grass was extra long and damp and he’d
left it weeks before calling me up. Sometimes I fibbed
and demanded more than I merited, especially when some
new vinyl just couldn’t be ignored.

Several times, while felling the grass, I caught
sight of him in one of the
upstairs windows, naked and having stand-up sex with someone
who was not his wife. I suspected he deliberately came
close to the window, knowing that I might be watching, as if he
were proud to be showing me how a man should be with a
woman. Once he pushed a lady’s buttocks so forcefully up against
the glass that I feared they might come smashing through.

Other times I saw him dancing up there
with his dog, holding her up by her
front paws and really seriously dancing, like with a woman,
bringing her close to him, spinning her around. The dog,
named Sally, had enormous patience for her master; another dog
would’ve bitten off his nose. That was the kind of dog I was
always going to have, with its long, fluffy fur and a wet kiss
on the cheeks for anyone who wanted it. I even started saving
up my pocket money when I was told that a puppy like that didn’t
come cheap. Suffice to say that my Judy refers to dogs of
any nature as stinking mongrels.

Our Doctor Waverly was a maverick, to
borrow a word from my father. In fact,
my parents asked me more than once whether it was such a good
idea to be working for a man who had such a strange reputation
in the town. There was no way, of course, that I was going to
forfeit my weekly bundle of notes because of some nasty country
gossip. I lied and rigorously defended Waverly, telling my
father that I had never seen anything out of the ordinary.
No, it was malicious to suggest that he took young nurses home
from the hospital when his wife was away delivering meals to
the elderly. And I swore that I’d never seen him dancing
the polka with his collie.

Young Simon, he said to me one Saturday (I
never understood why he
thought an adjective was always necessary before my name), what
if I pay you not to mow the lawns?

Not
to mow them?

Well, who jolly well said that grass
always has to be cut down to nothing?

But it’ll be messy, I offered, without
even really thinking about it.

Nonsense. You’re just saying that because
that’s what you’ve heard, what
you’ve learnt, what you’ve been programmed to think. Don’t you
love long grass? Jumping in and rolling around in it?
Losing yourself in it? Taking a girl into it and making her giddy?

But everyone mows the lawns.

Which is exactly why we shouldn’t do it!

But I’ve been mowing yours for months. You
asked me to.

I did nothing of the sort, dear boy. You
asked me for the job. But I now ask
you this: does it look good to you, so clipped back to the
dirt and without any shape? I’d hoped you might see for
yourself how bad it looks. It’s nothing but conformism (which I
had to look up at home later).

I looked out over the lawn but couldn’t
think straight.

Let’s just let it grow back now, right up
towards the sun where it’s supposed
to be.

So I’m out of a job?

Rubbish. I’m going to pay you to make sure
that nothing gets lost in it,
that the blades come up free of constraint. You will also pull
out all of those other jealous weeds that might attack on a
side wind.

Jealous weeds? I did wonder (following
Waverly’s own logic) why the
grass had more of a right over the weeds to reach up towards
the sun. But I just didn’t have the nerve to say it, not when he
was so fired up and talking so fast.

You can also help me create a maze that
runs through it, he said. What fun
we’ll all have when it’s finished.

I pictured myself with one of the nurses,
being encouraged to strip
off our clothes and run through into the densest part of the
jungle. If only.

In the weeks that followed he paid me
exactly what I asked for. I pulled
out weeds that didn’t match the bright blades that grew
higher and higher, and I chucked out lost balls and litter
that swept in from the road – or the things that furious
neighbours tossed over their fences because they couldn’t believe
that someone would leave their front lawn so out of control. I
gave up trying to explain to my parents the change in my
working schedule.

Those memories made me stand and look out
over what remains of the
garden I created with Judy. What a pity we left everything go to seed
and the grass to become so thin. We’ve gone so crazy on
the mowing that the ground looks like it’s been chopped up by
a plough. No garden, no passion, my gran would always say.

Judy stood over me with a cigarette as I
polished my shoes. She blew smoke
into my face.

So you’re taking a day off, she said. Getting
all dressed up in a suit,
driving for five hours and buying expensive roses for some old geezer
you used to mow the lawns for?

Exactly.

Was this your father then, Simon? Is that
it? You mowed lawns for this old
guy and he turned out to be your real biological father?

You
need a coffee, Judy.

I’ve had three already, but I’m still
bored.

She pushed me gently to make me fall
forward. My hand landed in the black
tub of polish.

So I take it you’re not coming, my sweet?

Not unless you tell me it’s your long lost
father. Or how about someone
related even? Or at least someone we’ve had contact with over
the past 20 years? Jeez.

I’ll see you on Friday then.

So how did he die this psychiatrist?

Our eyes locked.

He
killed himself.

He what? Psychiatrists aren’t supposed to top
themselves.

It was true. The thought hadn’t crossed my
mind. Just as we don’t ever expect
a dentist to have rotting teeth, or a plumber to have to
clean up after the eruption of their own blocked toilet. A
psychiatrist is supposed to be the happy, rational one, who
talks others out of such a terrible plan. They are the ones who
know how to get others to grin and bear it and pretend
everything is okay. How could they then turn around and chuck it
all in?

Judy gave me a look of disgust. And you
want to pay tribute to this guy,
who couldn’t even practise what he preached?

Who on
earth practises what they preach?

She didn’t say goodbye or wish me well
when I headed off.

You’ll be lucky if I’m here when you get
back, she said.

She didn’t mean it, of course. She always
said that whenever I left the
house.

I phoned her later from the motorway. Why
didn’t you ask to come then?

Same reason you didn’t invite me.

Don’t you remember me talking about him?
All those things he used to get me
thinking about? He was a genius. I miss him.

Yeah, so I gather.

I asked her if she remembered the thing
about why we wash our face in the
morning, and I could swear I almost heard her laugh.

No.

He drove me crazy with his seemingly easy
questions that got me so worked up.

I told Judy not to hang up just yet. So why
do you still wash your face when
you get up in the morning, even if you’ve had a shower the
night before?

You’re going to go weird on me. I can hear
it in your voice.

It’s just a question.

You’ll lose your job and then we’ll be in
the shit.

Heavens. It’s just a question about
washing your face in the morning.

There was silence. Then she sighed. I
don’t know.

That’s how I responded all those years ago
to Doctor Waverly. Sometimes
it was best to play dumb with him, especially when
football practice was not far away.

But it doesn’t get all dirty when you
sleep, does it?

Another silence. It wakes me up. The
answers were coming painfully.

Does it? But you’re already awake when
you’re standing at the sink.

No, but it wakes me up some more.

Does it really?

I think so.

Maybe you just do it out of habit. You’re
programmed to do it.

It makes me feel better. Can I go now?

Habits often do make us feel better. But I
bet you feel just the same after
waking, whether you splash water over your face or not. You would
become more alert anyway, and the washing of the face
has nothing to do with it.

It gets the sleep out of my eyes.

I laughed. You don’t need water for that.
In fact, it’s better when the
sleep stays dry, so it can be wiped out more easily.

But she had already hung up. Just as well,
I suppose, as I know it’s not
good to phone and drive.

The same question had my young self in
knots for weeks. I asked everyone for
their opinion, and no one really gave a convincing answer.
Doctor Waverly was brilliant. I stopped washing my face in
the morning, except when I was due to have a bath anyway. Judy
probably continued to splash cold water on her face in the
mornings out of spite, pure and simple. No, some silly old tale
from a quack who dances with his dog should not be taken
seriously.

I stopped off in a petrol station to buy
some cigarettes. But before I got
back to the car I found myself sobbing uncontrollably. I
was blubbering like a child, and found it difficult to keep
my nose from running at the same time. Some people parked up
beside me stared and I tried to turn away to hide the fact I was
so upset. I coughed and coughed as though I were sick, and
pretended to spit something vile out of my mouth. I held my
face in my hands and tried to work out what had made me so
upset. Yes, I was sad that Doctor Waverly was dead, but I hadn’t
seen him for so many years.

Back in the car it came to me that what
was so upsetting was the brutal
passage of time, that thing about witnessing the end of an era,
the fact that all the dreams and plans I had as a teenager
had not been fulfilled. I was overwhelmed with memories of
Doctor Waverly and his powerful theories on how life should be
lived. One of those was about the people we live with. He told
me that 90 per cent of his mental health cases were patients
who refused or were unable to get away from the families
that were no good for them. If only people weren’t so stuck on
sticking with their useless, dysfunctional families, he would rant.

I couldn’t help but think about Judy. Why
were we sticking it out?

When I got to the church, half an hour
before the service started, no one
seemed to be able to point out any of Doctor Waverly’s close
family. There only seemed to be friends and former colleagues.
I got a blank look from one elderly woman when I explained that
I used to mow the lawns for the doctor, back when I was a
teenager. At first she took my hand, apparently to offer
comfort, but she pulled away when she realised I was not
someone more significant. She looked down at my nice black suit
and tie, as though to inquire why someone like me
would go to so much effort.

I did recognise someone in the end: another
elderly woman who organised local
performances of classical music. Mrs Diamond, the
upholder of society’s values and correct decorum. I introduced
myself, but she had no recollection of me.

I was there on the night of the fracas.

The fracas?

Doctor Waverly took me along to a concert
you organised with some young
group that played something quite modern and experimental.

Oh. I think I know what you’re referring
to. Peculiar fellow, wasn’t he?
He treated my sister, though, got her through all sorts
of crises. Credit where it’s due is what I’ve always said.

She wandered off, shaking her head.

Yes, peculiar fellow he was. Doctor
Waverly had invited me to accompany him
to one of Mrs. Diamond’s highbrow concerts in the war memorial
hall. Simple Simon needed a bit of cultural exposure,
he jested. Actually, on the way to the concert in his car,
he explained that no one else would go with him. I later
discovered why.

We sat in a row in the middle of the hall,
surrounded by people all dressed
up, many obviously keen to be seen at such a cultural event. I
spotted a couple of teachers from school and the owners of
the newsagents where I bought my comics every week. The
performance was very modern, to say the least. I’m no musician,
but it sounded like everyone was playing whatever they
wanted, randomly choosing high, screeching notes. I wondered
if any of those people holding up the violins and brass
instruments had ever had a single lesson. The title of the
piece had something to do with Hiroshima, if I remember rightly.
Everyone listened intently, with not a sound around us.
The long, quiet bits, when there were just a couple of violins
being tapped on the back with fingers, were unbearable. At the
end, though, everyone applauded loudly and enthusiastically.

Except for Doctor Waverly.

I was horrified when he stood up and
started booing. He drowned out the
clapping with long, throaty boos, making angry gestures with his
hands for the musicians to get off the stage. If I’d been
able to snake down in my seat and slip onto the floor, I would’ve
done it. Everyone seemed to be looking at me, as though I
were the crazy man’s son. My teachers looked at me and
shook their heads in disgust. Doctor Waverly was not put off.
Why are you all clapping, you dozy flock of sheep? The music
was rubbish but you’re pretending you loved it! You’re
hypocrites! You hated it, as much as my son and I did!

My son? My son? Could it have been any
worse? I wanted to die. I struggled to
breathe and folded over in my seat. I dared not look at
anyone. To my left I saw four men grabbing Waverly by the
arms, dragging him down the aisle, as he continued to scream
out about the pathetic sheep and the musicians who
should be ashamed of themselves. You’re all living a lie, was
the last phrase I heard him shout.

Afterwards, out in the lobby, I tried to
tell as many people as possible
that the crazy man was not my father and I’d just happened
to be sitting there next to him. I said this five times to the
teachers from school, but they just seemed to look at me with
wide eyes of sympathy. I called my real father and asked
him if he would quickly come and pick me up. On the way home I
vowed that I would never mow the doctor’s lawns again.

As the funeral service progressed, with
several dull hymns and
predictable prayers, I realised that no one had told any stories like
the ones I remembered. All of the tributes and anecdotes about
Waverly were extremely tame and careful, not at all close to
the truth about the man’s character and the impression he
left on people. Why were they being so dishonest? Had they
never spent any time with him? I gathered his wife had died
some time before, burying a lot of the gems about the dear but
infuriating doctor.

You’d think they were talking about a
missionary, whose life had been
nothing but meditation and purity, who had never experienced fun.
All of his out-of-the-box thinking contained. Successfully
conditioned. Perfectly rounded. Miserable in his rational, predictable
existence.

An elderly gentleman gave a long and
earnest speech about the merits of hard
work, about the need to ‘make peace with our maker’, about
the undesirability of a life led too far removed from the
church. About three quarters way through I realised that the
man had probably never met Waverly, and had probably just
turned up to the service by chance, a regular in the parish who
liked to participate in the weekly activities. Any opportunity to
repeat his convictions! People at a funeral are such a well-behaved
lot, too sober to shift in their seats and express any pang
of boredom.

Waverly was being sent off with such a
fizz that even the flowers in the tall
vases at the front seemed to be wilting before our eyes.
And who had chosen such dull colours?

When I got to my feet - and I can only say
that it was far from voluntary
- I did so with such a thrust that I almost tipped myself over
into the aisle. I caught a couple of faces, confused stares,
but nothing could stop the force that erupted from within, a
surge of something that I’d never felt before, which made me shake
and my sight become blurred.

Boo! Boo!

Were those my words?

Boo to all of this nonsense!

They all turned to stare at me, all of
those tidy, bored faces.

Shame on you! Waverly deserved better than
this. He needs to be celebrated.

I pushed away a couple of arms that
attempted to constrain me and I got
up onto the bench behind me.

Boo to all of your politeness, your
hypocrisy. You’re debasing a
genuinely good man. He would mock you if he were here.

The minister was in front of me then,
clasping my hands, his wide eyes
begging me to stop.

Boo! Boo! I gave the thumbs-down sign with
both hands.

They started a new hymn as I was pushed
off the bench and led towards the
exit. I tried to keep up the volume but a man was half covering
my mouth, telling me to shut up as he pinched the skin
around my middle. I felt no pain, though, just that strange
surge of absolute elation.

I sat in the car for a long time before I
phoned Judy. She didn’t say
anything when I told her that I was heading further down the
coast to see a man about a dog. I laughed when I said that,
remembering how Waverly used that old expression a lot,
to describe all of his unexplained absences to his wife.

But, in actual fact, I was going to see a man about a dog, a certain
collie in fact. It was the address of a breeder I’d often heard
about. Did he do collies that could dance the polka with their
masters?

Judy sighed loudly, just to let me know
she was still there. Then, when I
had nothing more to say, she asked me if I had
any idea of when she might expect me.

I watched him from what I hoped would be a safe distance, as he said goodnight to the doorman, all smiles and bonhomie from behind his tidy beard and moustache. Who would’ve thought that he could look so amiable? He had a stack of papers under one arm, most likely manuscripts, to which he would probably only devote a couple of distracted minutes before bedtime. His other arm had not yet properly found its place in his jacket, which was only half on, making him tilt to one side, like a glider in trouble, jabbing his empty sleeve towards the pavement. Then, at last, Gerald P. Cossack was ready to walk. But even when he did break into his stride, he remained terribly stilted somehow. He put his head down and made his way, as I’d hoped, towards Union Square.

Now listen up if you can hear me! Trees can cackle like old women, Mr. Cossack, if the wind is right and the leaves are brittle enough. Yes, they can. Do you hear me? And ‘that’ instead of ‘which’? Really? In this day and age, when they have become so interchangeable? Oh, you are such an old stick in the mud. Just look at you! I would be laughing if you hadn’t made me cry so raw. And so what if I had the one-way traffic in that bloody London street hurtling away from the river and not towards it. Who cares? Who really cares? Should we stub somebody out because of it? I may have carried out a little bit of literary vandalism with all of those unnecessary adverbs. Granted. But this is what I’d like to say, firmly, passionately and convincingly: nobody died because of it.

I followed him for a couple of blocks, careful to stop and stare into a shop window whenever I thought there might be a risk of him turning around and looking my way. I had actually expected someone taller, with more of a manly frame, going on the photo I’d seen in The New York Times. I noticed his bizarre gait: one of his feet turned inwards as it landed on the pavement. A child might walk like that, until his parents pulled him up on it. One would hope that any decent mother or father would force their child to straighten up the feet and always keep an eye on them. But poor old Cossack might not have had such caring parents. Actually, maybe he didn’t even have parents.

Looking increasingly clumsy and vacant, he almost crossed a busy junction where the little man (or is it a woman?) had not yet turned green. A taxi driver yelled out. A cyclist swerved and swore. A drunk laughed. It was hard to believe this was actually the same Cossack who commanded so much power, who could ruin someone’s life with the tiniest squirt of ink from his pen. Getting closer behind him, I saw long white stains across his denim jeans and jacket, the kinds of marks left behind from sloppy washing. Was there no one at home to look after him? Had no one ever told him that a man of his age should no longer attempt to wear denim? How terribly sad.

As I’d hoped, he turned into the dim, narrow bar where I’d first observed him the week before. I stood at the door and watched his lazy progress, taking the opportunity to pull the fringe of my blonde wig further down over my eyes, just in case he was good at faces, profiles, familiar roman noses. He took the same seat, over beside a display of Marilyn Munroe memorabilia. He shook hands and patted backs, and I heard his voice for the first time as he greeted a couple of people. He had a southern accent, with a deep, rumbling quality. Here he was obviously liked and he felt at ease. I heard him order the same “blanche” he’d ordered the week before, which I discovered was a very transparent-looking beer from Belgium. No simple Bud for this man. No, Sir. He made no attempt to wipe the foam off his moustache after the first sip. He closed his eyes and let his body sink down into a deep sigh. How clichéd he looked. Bereft of striking characteristics of his own, to make us want to get to know him. What bloody work this man would be to flesh out.

I took a seat a few tables away, keeping my chin close to my chest, trying not to draw attention to myself. I ordered a glass of Italian red when the barman finally came over. He briefly looked down at my stomach, and I thought for a moment that maybe he’d noticed what I’d so carefully hidden. I almost stood up in a panic. But then he walked back over to the bar, seemingly unconcerned, wiping a few tables on the way. I kept my eyes fixed on the clock on the far wall and touched my middle, making sure everything was still safely in place, and then pinched at my blouse near the bottom to make it puff up. The silkiness felt wet. Was I sweating?

I took a gulp of the wine, which was way too warm, and let it flood the bottom of my mouth. I froze the muscles in my face and let the wine slowly leak down the back of my throat. I took out the last letter he’d sent me, the one that had brought our exciting 12-month exchange to a savage halt. What I will maintain, if I am ever called upon to explain things, is that Cossack had teased me unnecessarily – cruelly, in fact. He had cajoled me into a hypnotic dance, and I’d been stupid to believe that it was safe enough to reveal my nakedness, my vulnerability. It was difficult to read the words again, but I had to be reminded of how they had cut me down. The word dearest, in subsequent re-readings, had made me violently ill.

Dearest Francis,

I am so sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Although I was
optimistic after reading your tenth (!!!) rewrite, I am still
not satisfied with how the book has developed. The overall
theme is brilliant, and once again in this latest version you
had me hooked at the start, causing me to ask: 'Could
something like this really take place?'

Sadly, however, after all these months, I didn't really care.
I feel that where you have gone wrong is that you have not
drawn your character well enough, not made him sympathetic
enough. His head is not a pleasant place for us to be in and
we are caught in his dark thoughts for longer than one can
bear. (Do we also have to have so many descriptions of things
and all those quirky observations?).

When I finished your manuscript I found that I thoroughly
disliked your protagonist. I also didn’t care about him or
what he did. Also, your sunny ending was terribly contrived
and came out of nowhere. Actually, I feel that what you have
here is a terrific short story shackled inside a novel that is
far too long and arduous. Less shade, more colour?

I regret having to write this to you because you are such a
competent, proven writer. However, I believe that you need to
accept the fact that you had a wonderful premise but just
didn’t make the most of it. Of course, not all novels should
have nice characters, but here there is not even one!

I’m truly sorry that I didn’t see all of this before, when we
asked you to rewrite those difficult passages. It’s possible
that I did spot these problems, but I suppose I just hoped
deep down that you would find a way out of the mess. This is
just my own point of view, of course, and someone else may
arrive at a different opinion entirely. However, I hope you
understand my position when I say that I am passing on this
book. I would stress, though, that I still think the world of
you as a writer.

Shall I pop the MS in the post, or should I place it in the
recycling bin? Please don’t take this too personally. After
all, honesty is the best policy.

Kind regards,

Gerald P. Cossack.

Well, even though everything else in my life had turned hazy, it was perfectly clear to me that Cossack had to pay. It was out of the question that I would let him write that, after all I’d been through, without him suffering like he knew that I would suffer. Even if he had a point or two, and I’m happy to acknowledge it, there was no excuse for that kind of devastating letter. I no longer cared about the consequences. At his expense, I would feel life fill me up again.

I’d never found the courage to show that letter to anyone. I kept it folded up inside my bag, taking it out to reread dozens of times, during my desperate drives into the countryside, when I sat in those cafés along the coast, not wanting to return home. I told the more persistent of my friends that the publishers had fallen on hard times, forced to cut back on the number of books they printed. Yeah, right.

But everyone kept on at me: when would my second book be coming out, the one that I’d been struggling with for two years, which had required me to go on expensive writing retreats and even “escapes” to Paris and then Montreal? I locked myself away to avoid the piercing inquiries. As though my whole existence depended on the publication of another damn book! No one asked how I was, or how anything else in my life was; it was just the bloody book! I referred to it as my difficult second birth. People stopped praising me on my first novel, which had sold a respectable number, but just kept badgering me about the absence of the follow-up. Do you know that I’ve taken up cooking? I asked in desperation. Italian cuisine. Traditional. I won a prize in this contest, but I suppose you don’t want to hear about that. Didn’t think so. I also play the clarinet quite well. Also, I’m learning how to arrange flowers.

‘Do you mind if I sit here,’ I said. He hadn’t noticed me cross the bar, even though my feet seemed to make horrendous thuds on the unvarnished wooden boards.

‘Go ahead. No one else is sitting there.’

I examined his face as he glanced up, to check for any hint of recognition. Nothing, though. His eyes, watery and slightly pocked, went back to a crossword. Those horrid, rheumy eyes of his. That was a line from the book.

‘It’s awfully hot in here,’ I said.

Nothing. He just gently tapped his fingers on the table, apparently waiting for a stubborn word to move forward from the back of his mind. The smell of fries, mustard and sausages filled the bar, and then I saw a plate being whisked off to someone near the back.

I had already figured that the chances of Cossack recognising me when I got up close were slim. When they published my first book they’d put a small photograph of me on the back cover, but it was a black and white, and my hair had been gelled back behind my ears. (My mother said that I’d come across as severe and unfriendly, and nobody would want to buy the book, no matter how good it was.) Also, I had only met Cossack briefly when the contract for the first novel had been signed. I’d been told that he only really gets to know his authors in person after their third or fourth babies.

I squeezed my thumb and said, ‘Are you drinking alone?’

He didn’t look up. ‘Alone is not really the word.’

‘Oh?’

He kept his eyes on his crossword. ‘The bar is full. Even if I were having this drink in my own company, it’s not alone.’

I needn’t have been surprised by his rudeness. Really. Anyone who knows even the slightest thing about him would’ve expected something like that.

I decided to get things moving. Conflict. Action. Resolution.

‘I just thought you looked like someone who could do with some company.’

He looked up at me then. His mouth opened some time before the word came out. ‘Company?’

He gave each syllable an unusual stress, with a deliberate, slow beat. Cum-pa-nee. The sound seemed to come up from deep in his stomach. It made me think of the beginning of Lolita.

‘Do I know you?’ he asked.

‘Just like we’re never really alone, we never really know anyone, do we?’

He smiled. ‘Well, if you’ve really got nowhere else to sit.’ He pushed the paper to the end of the table and looked down at my breasts, as I’d hoped he would. I pulled in my stomach and pushed both shoulders forward, slightly wiggling them; I didn’t want to make it too obvious, but just enough for him to notice.

I realised at that point that I could not go back. I had already passed the most risky moment, and I had told myself that sitting down at the table with him would be the confirmation that I would go ahead with my abominable act. I would risk everything, and it didn’t seem to matter anymore. I was now a character in my own crime novel. I knew that if I ever had to later confide in someone about what happened this would be the moment I would remember the most. Poor old Cossack was well and truly hooked, just as he’d seemed to be with my novel. No chance of getting away, the poor sod.

‘So what do you do?’ he said.

I leant forward slightly. ‘Do you mean when I’m working, or when I’m playing?’

He sat back and chuckled, shaking his head.

I pulled out the chair and sat down, careful to ensure that there was no risk of my surprise slipping into view.

He said, ‘Do you often just chat to men in late-night bars?’

‘All the time. I’m interested in people. In their stories. In how they survive this funny old life. How they see their place in the world. I like to create surprises in my life, like a twist, the unexpected.’

‘Oh.’ He looked down at my breasts again.

‘I’m really into people’s stories.’

‘You sound like a social worker.’

‘More of an artist, but I suppose it’s like being a social worker.’

‘An artist? Do you mean a painter?’

‘Kind of. I do like to portray people, work out what colours and shade and textures are needed to create them.’

He took another mouthful of beer and I could see him discreetly checking me out again. A deeper discussion about colour and light was not really what interested him, which is exactly how I wanted things to go. I tried to imagine what look would come over his face when he realised what he had coming to him.

‘So what do you do,’ I asked.

‘I ... I make people ... but I also ruin people.’

I had to force myself to stay still, to suppress the shriek that wanted to fly out of my chest. ‘Really?’

‘It’s a terrible job.’ He shook his head, but then stopped and looked me straight in the eyes. ‘But there’s also pleasure in it. A power thing, I suppose. Decisions about whether someone is somebody or nobody. Funny, isn’t it?’

I folded my arms, to stop myself from trembling with rage. I had to stay calm. Action. Dialogue. Resolution. Nobody is nobody. Everybody is somebody. I looked straight back at him and said, ‘There’s a little hotel, just across the street.’

His eyes opened wide and he tightened his grip on his glass. He looked down at the table.

‘Oh, I’m just trying to paint a new situation. Anything wrong with that? Am I being too direct?’

‘It’s just all very sudden. I mean ... I don’t even know you.’

‘And I don’t know you. Isn’t that exciting?’ I stood up and nodded towards the exit.

The confidence had all but disappeared from his face. He now looked like a nervous high school kid, scared of deciding things for himself. Oh, how quickly we can change. But then, how wonderful to be able to mould a sequence of new events like this, to pull someone towards a conclusion that is not of their own choosing.

He followed me, not straight away, but a few minutes later. I was about 30 metres ahead of him the whole time, and I only had to look back once to make sure he was still there. I waited inside the lift in the hotel, my finger resting firmly on the button that kept the doors open. I’d already told the receptionist that I had a guest arriving, who was just finding a park down the street.

Cossack smiled nervously as he eventually stepped into the lift. ‘I’m a married man.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘And I’m old enough to be your father.’

‘I still don’t care.’ I twisted a finger around a curl in my wig.

‘I’ve never really done this before,’ he said, shaking his head and looking at the floor. ‘But I must say that I find it very compelling. I suppose I’ll have to pay. Is that it?’

‘No. Well, not with money.’

He looked at me blankly.

‘This is new for me, too,’ I said. ‘Sometimes we have no choice, though. Sometimes we just have to go along with things. It’s just how things develop.’

I placed my hand on the small of his back and guided him into the room. He took such small steps, as though he were blindfolded, expecting to crash into some obstacle. I told him to help himself to the choice of small bottles of alcohol in the fridge, which the receptionist had made a point of telling me about. I prepared some glasses and closed the curtains. The bed was massive, covered in a brown and cream duvet with matching cushions. Above the bed was a large painting of an elderly man on a bicycle. I dared not smile.

He poured us both a whisky and coke and added ice cubes. ‘I didn’t think this could happen to someone my age. How very lucky to have stopped off for a drink tonight.’

‘Yes, how very lucky. I just couldn’t help myself.’

‘What do you like,’ he asked, sitting down in an armchair. He now looked more at ease, starting to look cocky even.

‘Everything,’ I said. ‘Your pleasure is my pleasure.’ I took a sip of the drink.

‘Everything?’

‘I want you to devour me. I want to lose myself in your heat and sweat.’

He beamed a teenager’s grin and sat back with his legs wide apart. He gulped his drink in one go.

I sat down on the edge of the dresser. It was too soon for action, too soon to reveal my true intentions. I went over again what I had planned. I didn’t want anything to go wrong. I had no back-up plan.

‘You’re intriguing,’ he said.

‘Take off your clothes. I want to see you naked.’

‘Now? Just like that?’

‘Why not? Let’s get down to it. Let’s cut to the chase, as they say.’

‘You seem in a mighty hurry.’

‘I have no time to waste. I have a whole life ahead of me, a whole life to lead.’

‘A whole life to lead?’

‘Being stringed along is not good for anyone.’

He stood up and started to unbutton his shirt, from the bottom up, which I thought was kind of odd. I’d only ever seen men loosen their buttons from the top down. The little things we notice. We can’t help ourselves, can we? Always on the look out for the dinky little details we can sprinkle throughout our cruel observations. Even at times of great stress.

‘I thought you might want to rip my clothes off me,’ he said.

My hands started shaking when I saw myself in the mirror opposite. I was actually doing it. There I was. No mistake. A dream it definitely wasn’t. The adverbs were there in front of me; there was no point in trying to stop them in their flow. He moved awkwardly. She pouted sexily, or at least she attempted to. The bed rose eerily into the air. Figuratively, of course.

He was naked. His skin was tanned, though sagging. Grey hair. His private parts crumpled up. No one could be more vulnerable. All power and pretence had left him. The eyes were less willing to engage.

I reached inside my blouse and took out the packet that I’d so carefully wrapped. I placed it on the table.

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a weapon.’

‘A weapon?’

I laughed. Loudly. I pointed. I put such effort into my laughing that it hurt across my chest. ‘Goodness. You think I might find a body like that attractive? Are you serious?’ I made it so tears mixed in with my roars of laughter.

‘What is this?’ He put his hand on the back of a chair.

‘It’s you. You are just so disappointing. Just look at the state of you. Do you really believe anyone would want you?’

‘What’s in the package? I don’t understand.’ He took a step back, his eyes scouring the room. Checking for possible escape routes?

‘Can I just say that I was optimistic after seeing you there in that bar, but I’m just not satisfied with how things have developed. You seemed so brilliant, so stunning, so sexy. You had me hooked. But just look at you! I’m sorry I didn’t see all of this before, but I hope you understand my position when I say that I’m going to have to say ... no thanks. Please don’t take it too personally. After all, honesty is the best policy.’

His blinking got faster. He went to speak, but nothing came out.

When I walked out of the hotel I still had a clear image of his bulging eyes, his trembling hands. I pictured him carefully opening the packet, still naked, and then the boom. The explosion inside his head when he realised what he had in his hands. No doubt, in the weeks that followed, he would’ve been absolutely sick watching that oh-so-familiar book rise to number one, in all its original glory, all of the culling reversed. Heavy on adverbs. The cackling trees replanted. Did he sit down and read the shiny reviews? One thing is sure: he won’t ever tell anyone the exact details of how he received his signed advance copy.

I write the odd short story, the odd poem, snap the odd photograph, and tickle the odd piece of ebony and ivory. I'm also adding the odd page to a novel-in-progress, and come here every now and then for a splash of creativity in cyberspace. Feel free to click on the buttons below to read and see more. If you want to contact me, please email: thecounterpointofdreams@gmail.com

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